Re: How much should I be charging?

Well, yesterday i shot my first wedding... im an advanced amatuer and have several years of experience in the field of photography... having said that yesterday was the first time i made money through my camera... i went with a friend who has similar experience although this was his second wedding shoot... between the two of us we shot close to 1000 photos and after editing we will be giving the bride and groom about 700 shots on on cd and another cd with the best 100 photos... i shoot with a canon 20d with a 580 ex and a nice tripod, my buddy shots with a nice nikon (10 mpx i think) d200? maybe... anyhow we only charged $600 yesterday and we split that evenly... i thought that was a fair price being that we are not professional wedding photographers with loads of experience... however, we were on sight from 9 am until 7 pm and worked hard the entire time, also the post processing and editing take a good deal of time... we are already talking about making up some cards and trying to turn this into a side business... we want to keep it affordable but cant see ourselves doing another $600 wedding... i was thinking $1500 is more appropriate but was hoping to hear some feedback as to whether or not that is a fair price given this particular situation... i know it will be hard to comment much without seeing the shots we took and perhaps when im a bit more organized i will post some of the shots... thanks for any help you can provide...

I think because wedding photographers come at a premium and because you are not "pros" you might want to "sell" yourselfs closer to the cheaper side, offering more money for the buck. I do the same thing. I typically will shoot by myself - sometimes with an assistant who I give 35% of what I make to. I roughly charge about $1,000-1,200 for the entire day or sometimes about $150 per hour. I then will make a album for the couple as well as mini books for the parents. Each containing about 15-20 shots. I then give all the quality shots to the couple on a cd, seperating the ones out that were put in the album in a folder.

Basically, I tried to cover my costs for travel, printing, materials (albums), additional staff (helper) and my time. You have to make it worth your while to do it, but not do it so cheap that you feel like it's a waste of your time and not worth the aggravation.